Platinum Team Members

Mike O’Malley

Mike joined Lexell Blue in March 2015 as a Platinum Team Member and has over 20 years of experience in the Government contracting space. Mike started his career as an auditor for the United States Government where he was responsible for conducting incurred cost audits, proposal audits, and accounting system reviews of mid-range to Fortune 100 companies. This experience sparked an interest in ERP systems and the means by which they can streamline back-office processes and optimize organizational performance.

Mike has worked with Deltek Costpoint, Time Collection, and Cognos reporting tools over the past 17 years. In addition to being a consultant and Consulting Manager with Deltek, Mike served as the Financial Systems Manager for a Deltek client and was responsible for implementing Costpoint, Time Collection, and a Cognos reporting solution. This experience was invaluable as it provided him with insight into how Deltek and Cognos applications are used in daily business operations. It also provided him the opportunity to develop reporting solutions that expedited daily and month-end processes, such as month-end reconciliations, unbilled AR reconciliations, and Inter-company cost transfers. He was also successful in developing and deploying a suite of project-centric reports that enabled line managers and analysts to obtain the information needed to effectively manage their respective projects.

Mike has a Bachelor of Science in Social Science/Secondary Education from Towson State University, a second Bachelor of Science in Accounting from University of Maryland University College, and an MBA from Virginia Tech. He currently resides in Charleston, South Carolina.

Joe Shepherd

Joe joined Lexell Blue in May 2015 as a Platinum Team Member and has over 25 years of experience in Government Contracting. Joe started his career as an auditor with Grant Thornton International where his concentration was in financial and compliance audits for Government Contractors. This experience led him to exposure and keen interest in Deltek products.

Joe continued his Government Contracting career growth in roles such as Corporate Controller and Director of Finance and Administration in several companies where he twice spearheaded the migration from legacy accounting systems to Deltek System 1 (now GCS Premier). As Joe’s product knowledge grew, he aspired to provide consulting services to Deltek customers.

In January 1996, Joe accepted a role at Deltek where he held various positions over the course of 17 years. He began with Deltek System 1 implementation consulting and transitioned into Costpoint implementation consulting. Joe progressed through the ranks of Costpoint consulting and became an ERP implementation project manager and part-time instructor with Deltek University. He also provided project management consulting to customer PMOs. His experience with PMOs led to the cultivation of accounting integrations with resource and project management tools such as Allegro, Primavera, Microframe and Cobra. During the latter half of his tenure with Deltek, Joe served as Director of Services where he developed and managed Costpoint and Earned Value Management consultants and played a lead role in the rollout of new product and service offerings.

Just prior to joining the Lexell Blue team, Joe worked as an independent consultant managing ERP implementation projects for Deltek and Deltek Partners.

Joe graduated with honors from University of Maryland - Bowie State with a Bachelor of Science in Accounting. He currently resides in the Northern Virginia area.

Karen Alba

Karen joined Lexell Blue in June 2015 as a Platinum Team Member and has over 20 years of Government Contract Accounting experience. Karen started her career in job cost, budgeting, and accounting departments in various supervisory roles at several large Government Contractors. She also acted as the internal project manager for Deltek software implementations for several subsidiaries initializing GCS Premier (formerly Deltek System 1). Karen went on to join Deltek where she was a Senior System Consultant and Principal Functional Designer for over 16 years. Karen was one of the first Deltek consultants to implement the first released version of Costpoint.

Karen provides significant domain expertise in Costpoint Project and Accounting modules. She created the functional design specifications in the Projects and Accounting modules for early versions of Costpoint including the first release of Costpoint 7. She was on the design team for Costpoint Indirect Rate Allocation, Revenue, and Billing processes with specific responsibility for the financial and project architecture. She often served as an internal resource for other Deltek departments for support, development, and quality assurance issues.

With Karen’s Government Contract Accounting and Deltek experience, she provides analysis and recommendations on period close processes and business process improvements. She has been instrumental in industry best practices, automating workflows, documenting policies and procedures, and developing customized training programs. She also acted as the lead consultant or project manager for numerous Costpoint implementations at both public and private sector companies.

Karen has a Bachelor of Science in Finance from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. She currently resides in the Northern Virginia area, where she enjoys spending time with her family and watching her kids play sports.

Lowell Ranger

Lowell joined Lexell Blue in December 2015 as a Platinum Team Member and has over 11 years of IT experience in the Business Intelligence and Government Contracting space. Lowell has led all stages of the Business Intelligence system development life cycle methodology and has led efforts related to requirements development and analysis, process design development, testing and post-implementation. Lowell has a Bachelor of Science in Finance from Saint Louis University and holds the IBM Cognos Solutions Architect certification. He currently resides in Rochester, New York.